I really wanted to give this 2 stars, at least grading on a curve, but that would be dishonest. So i'll simply have to state that this is the LEAST engaged i have ever felt reading Cabell.

I'm sure this is a fine example of what its attempting, which was a medieval/fantasy? romance thing. But i just did not care. Everything past the 60% mark was a little better but any praise i had to give up for the ploting was done begrudgingly.

This feels like it is to Cabell what the Silmarillion is to Tolkien... scratch that.. not the entire Silmarillion but like one of those stories they took from it, [b:The Children of Húrin|597790|The Children of Húrin|J.R.R. Tolkien|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1390692771l/597790._SY75_.jpg|5725966] for example.

Even when told with Cabells usual verve, its just so straight forward. It has neither the ribauld satire of [b:Jurgen|1110887|Jurgen (The Biography of Manuel, #7)|James Branch Cabell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328865792l/1110887._SY75_.jpg|1598851], the 'inspired by true events'angle of [b:The Certain Hour|8129303|The Certain Hour|James Branch Cabell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348518403l/8129303._SX50_.jpg|12996642] nor the weird fiction element of [b:The Cream of the Jest|1661275|The Cream of the Jest|James Branch Cabell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347690740l/1661275._SY75_.jpg|3001394].

Still well written in the details but for me its best aspect was that it was short. ( )

Cabell's style is a pleasure for me to read. The two tales in this Ballantine reprint are good light entertainment. He's fairly honest about women IMHO. The stories, were originally published in 1913 and 1920. The second story is "Music Beyond the Moon" ( )

I'm not sure what I expected when I decided to read this. At the time I was looking for novels which gave the reader an idea of the intellectual climate of a century ago. I had no idea what the title meant and when I saw the term Woman Worship in the subtitle I somehow pictured some sort of science fiction novel about a civilization deep in a jungle somewhere where women were treated as goddesses. Domnei, however, is a term relating to chivalric behavior and the novel is based on a fragmentary medieval tale of two lovers who are separated when they try to run off together. He is captured by an infidel king and she runs off to ransom him. The infidel king, however, decides he would rather have her than the ransom. She marries him, but holds him at arms' length indefinitely because of her scorn for him. Her lover moves heaven and earth to rescue her and innumerable bodies fall about the three of them. In the end, they stand gazing into each others' eyes. Of course, she's no longer the slip of a girl he first loved and they're not sure what to make of the people they've become.

I have to admit that I kept thinking that if this had been written 100 years later it would probably have been porn of the slightly sado-masochist variety. I kept waiting for someone to beat the heroine with a slipper or seduce the hero. The book isn't written for laughs and I'm no sure what the author's intent was, except to puncture the fallacies of the chivalric ideal. I'm not sorry I read it, but I'm still not sure why. ( )